by Simon Brett
He relished the celebrity lifestyle too. Once he’d moved back to London from the relative obscurity of the RSC at Stratford, his outrageous behaviour quickly made him a darling of the gossip columns. A wife, one of his contemporaries at RADA, had been quickly shed, and he had worked his way through a series of high-profile liaisons. Portie produced the mandatory illegitimate children, bar room brawls and drunken appearances at televised awards ceremonies. The tabloids, starved of characters in the mould of Richard Burton, Peter O’Toole and Richard Harris by a new generation of actors who were pretentiously ‘dedicated to their craft’, couldn’t have been happier. They gleefully took up the nickname ‘Portie’, and a day when they couldn’t report some new Portie outrage was a wasted day.
Remarkably, through all this, his talent remained undimmed. He still was a brilliant actor. Then he was cast as the lead in a big-budget television drama series opposite that year’s flavour of the month actress (with whom he had the inevitable high- profile affair). The show took every award on offer and was a huge international success. It was particularly big in America, where its stars were fêted and cosseted on publicity tours. Their high profile led to many offers of work, particularly for Portie.
It was at this point, lured by the prospect of big dollar cheques and needing to escape rather complicated domestic circumstances in England, that Portie decided to up his roots and move to try his luck in the States.
What happened to him thereafter was not well documented, at least not in his home country. Reports of Portie’s outrageous behaviour in Los Angeles soon dwindled away to nothing. The tabloids found new ‘bad boy celebrities’ to puff up (and subsequently destroy). Portie was seen in supporting roles in a couple of mediocre movies, but clearly didn’t crack Hollywood in a major way.
For all Charles Paris knew, he may have had a perfectly successful career in the States, starring in miniseries and Movies of the Week, but none of his work made much impact in the UK.
Looking at him in Joe Allen, Charles could see that Portie hadn’t aged well. The excesses of his lifestyle had taken their toll. Now in his sixties, the famous thatch of golden hair had subsided into a horseshoe of grey above his ears. The distinctive angular face had spread sideways, its skin reddened by broken veins. And the magnificently trim body, which had encouraged so many schoolgirls to pin up photographs of Portie in their bedrooms, was slack with fat. Prince Hal had given way to Falstaff.
One thing, it was clear from that lunch at Joe Allen, hadn’t changed. Portie still drank.
And, so long as nobody else wanted to take much part in the conversation, he remained a very entertaining companion. Even if he hadn’t made it big there himself, he commanded an inexhaustible supply of scurrilous anecdotes about the biggest Hollywood stars.
Charles Paris was quite content in the role of listener. Though, like most actors, he could take centre stage in a social situation, he didn’t crave that kind of attention. In rehearsal he sat quietly at the side of the room with The Times crossword. Joining in in moments of communal hilarity, but generally just listening. He eschewed big occasions. The thought of attending a Cup Final or The Last Night of the Proms was anathema to him. In a crowd he became invisible, lost the fragile hold he had on his personality. Outside work, the less people he was with the better. His ideal was one other person, preferably female. Having a meal with a woman he fancied, that was Charles Paris’s idea of heaven.
But he could still enjoy being in the company of a born entertainer. And Portie was certainly that. He had just finished a hilarious defamatory story about Dustin Hoffman’s monomania when for a moment he waxed philosophical. ‘But why shouldn’t we draw attention to ourselves during our brief spell on earth? Human beings are by their nature ephemeral, and surely actors are the most ephemeral of all. What do we leave behind? Performances on stage that are forgotten within weeks. Performances on film and television that will soon look dated and whose technologies will soon be superseded. Lovers’ memories of ourselves that die when they die. Children? The product of a few randomly scattered but tenacious sperm. Children who grow away from us and forget us.’ He refilled his glass and raised it. ‘Enjoy the moment – it’s the only bloody thing we can be sure of.’
Tibor and Charles raised their glasses too, to toast the thought.
‘Still, enough about me,’ roared Portie, laughing, knowing it was a joke, knowing that there was never going to be enough about him. ‘What about you, Charles? You still getting work?’
‘Occasionally. You actually catch me in one of those rare moments when I’ve got a job.’
‘Good for you!’
‘I’m doing—’
But he knew the interest in his career would be short-lived. ‘Why is it,’ Portie cut through his words, ‘that all directors are full of shit?’
‘Thank you,’ said Tibor Pincus, not really offended.
‘I don’t mean you, Tibor. You were bloody good. You recognized actors’ talent and let them display that talent. Let me rephrase my question. Why is it that all directors nowadays are full of shit? They all think they know your job better than you do. Some of them have the nerve to give you bloody acting lessons. Particularly in the States, particularly in television. Yes, all right, television’s a technical medium, but it’s not rocket science. All the director has to do is point the bloody camera at that actor and let the actor bloody act!’ He looked across at Charles. ‘Who’s directing the show you’re doing?’
‘Bloke called Ned English.’
‘Oh, bloody hell! I remember him. One of those poncey poseurs who thought, because he’d been to Cambridge and studied Shakespeare, he knew more about the theatre than people who’d learned how to act by bloody acting. Is he still staging plays in fatuous settings? What are you doing? As You Like It set in a bloody launderette?’
‘No, actually I—’
‘I don’t know, how is it some of these wankers survive in the business? Ned English – you could tell from day one he was full of shit. It’s scandalous that he’s still making a living. He should have been recognized long ago for the pile of crap that he is.’
‘Did you ever work with him, Portie?’
‘Did I? Bloody tried to. When he was the hottest thing in the West End, he cast me in “The Scottish Play”.’ Portie looked around anxiously, then realized he wasn’t in a theatre and said, ‘Bloody Macbeth. I’d just done my Hamlet at the RSC, Macbeth was a part I’d always wanted to play, so I signed up. But I didn’t sign up to play Macbeth in a bloody Chinese restaurant! Kurosawa got away with relocating the play to medieval Japan, but Ned English’s attempt to make it about the dynastic ambitions of Chinese waiters just didn’t cut the mustard. Thank God it was a short run and out of town. Hardly anyone saw it. Where’s he setting the thing you’re doing?’
‘Inside Hamlet’s skull.’
‘Oh. Hamlet …?’ For a moment Portie seemed taken aback, as if he was about to ask something, but he moved on. ‘Bloody typical! No, I’m afraid Ned English and me was not a marriage made in heaven.’ He waved at a passing waiter. ‘Another bottle of the Cab Sauv, please. No, I hated the bastard. All smooth and smarmy on the outside, but he was up to some pretty devious stuff.’
‘Oh?’ said Charles Paris.
‘Had an eye for the girls. Well, nothing wrong with that. All been guilty of that in our time.’ Portie roared a roguish laugh, implying a thousand seductions. ‘At least I bloody hope we have. But Ned English had a rather nasty way with the old casting couch.’
‘How do you mean?’ asked Charles. Tibor Pincus seemed long since to have given up participation in the conversation, content just to drink and listen.
‘Ned was screwing some young actress in the Macbeth company who was playing a Court Lady – well, for “Court Lady” read “Posh Customer in Chinese Restaurant”. Damn pretty girl, can’t remember her name, lovely tits though. I’d had a couple of nights with her in the first week of rehearsal and I think she was all upset when I moved on, and N
ed picked her up on the rebound. Anyway, she was an ambitious little minx and she got to thinking, “I’m screwing the director of this play, surely I ought to be able to take advantage of that?”’
‘In what way?’
‘The most old-fashioned way of all, Charles. Little tart wanted a bigger part and starts putting pressure on our Ned. No way she’s going to get Lady Macbeth, but she reckons she could easily be bumped up to Lady Macduff – you know, have all her “pretty chickens killed in one fell swoop”. I mean, of course, what I’m talking about was just company gossip but, knowing Ned English, I wouldn’t have put it past him.’
‘Put what past him?’
‘Bide your time, Charles. You should know better than to interrupt a legendary anecdotist in the middle of telling of one of his anecdotes.’
‘I feel appropriately reprimanded, Portie.’
‘Bloody hope so too. Anyway, what happens is, interval of the Dress Rehearsal poor cow who’s playing Lady Macduff falls down the stairs from her dressing room. After that, what else can happen? Ned’s bit of stuff, who he’s moved up to understudy, has to go on, doesn’t she? All right, could have been an accident, but good old backstage gossip says that maybe Ned English helped the original Lady Macduff on her way, to ensure his continuing access inside the girlfriend’s knickers. Huh.
‘Anyway, dear boys, must tell you about a rather interesting evening I once spent with Nicole Kidman … Well, I say evening, but it might be more accurate were I to describe it as a night, and let me tell you …’
But Charles Paris’s mind was too full to concentrate on more tales from Hollywood.
TWENTY
At Paddington it somehow seemed natural to buy a half-bottle of Bell’s for the journey back. And, bizarrely, there didn’t seem to be any of it left by the time the train drew into Swindon. Charles didn’t have much recollection of the cab ride from there to Marlborough.
Possibly as a result of this – though Charles Paris thought it was more because his brain was too full – that evening’s performances of the Ghost of Hamlet’s Father and the First Gravedigger were not the best they had ever been. So much so that Ned English, who happened to be watching out front for the show, left a message saying he wanted to have a word with Charles afterwards.
Which was actually very convenient.
A pint in the pub nearest to the theatre did make Charles feel more together as he listened to the reprimand from his director. No point in arguing or defending himself. His behaviour had been unprofessional and out of order.
Apparently – though Charles hadn’t been aware of the lapse – he’d even mangled Shakespeare’s words. Rather than the Ghost saying, ‘O wicked wit and gifts,’ as demanded by the text, he had said, ‘O wicked git and wifts,’ which, though it hadn’t got a laugh from the audience, had very nearly made Sam Newton-Reid’s Hamlet corpse.
His apology was appropriately contrite, not to say abject. But, having got that out of the way, Charles Paris was not going to miss his opportunity to interrogate Ned English about Katrina Selsey’s death.
‘You still with that StarHunt contestant?’ he asked with apparent casualness. ‘Billie-Louise?’
Ned’s eyes, behind the circular tortoiseshell glasses, looked puzzled for a moment. Then, reckoning he must have let slip the girl’s name to Charles in an unguarded moment, he replied, ‘Yes.’
‘You lucky dog.’
‘She is rather beautiful, you’re right.’
‘The older man being rejuvenated by the blood of young virgins?’
‘Billie-Louise is hardly a virgin.’
‘No, but you know what I mean.’
‘Yes.’ But something in Ned’s tone suggested that being with Billie-Louise was not an unmixed blessing. ‘You should try it one day, Charles.’
‘The younger woman? Believe me, I have. Fine, I’ve found, till you get on to their taste in music and movies.’ He paused, uncertain for a moment how much finesse to use in his investigating, before deciding to plunge straight in. Not feeling very original, he fell back on the approach he’d used with Bazza in The Pessimist’s Arms. ‘You know how backstage gossip spreads, don’t you, Ned?’
He snorted. ‘Tell me about it.’
‘Well, I heard something about you and Billie-Louise …’
‘Who from?’
Charles shook his head. ‘Never reveal your sources. The rumour was that Billie-Louise was putting pressure on you to get her into the show as Ophelia.’
Maybe it was the booze uninhibiting him sufficiently to be that blunt. His words certainly had an effect on Ned. For a moment the director just mouthed at him, without any sound coming out. Finally, he got himself together sufficiently to say, ‘Did you hear that from Geraldine?’
‘I said I wouldn’t reveal my sources.’
‘I bet it was her. She’s a devious cow.’
Charles hadn’t really thought of her in that light before but, remembering the deftness with which she had neutralized any sexual advances from him, he thought Ned might be right.
‘Anyway, so what? What if I am considering putting Billie-Louise in as Ophelia?’
‘Well, Milly Henryson for one is going to be extremely upset.’
‘Charles, one thing that working with Tony Copeland over the years has taught me is that you can’t be sentimental in this business. If Billie-Louise, because of her StarHunt fame, is going to put more bums on seats than Milly Henryson, then for Tony the question as to who should play the part would be a no-brainer.’
‘And have you suggested the idea to him yet?’
Ned English looked shifty. ‘Not as such, no.’
‘Another thing,’ Charles continued on the wave of his alcohol-driven confidence, ‘that’s being said backstage is that Billie-Louise might have had it in for Katrina Selsey.’
‘Why?’
‘You talked about no-brainers, Ned. Surely that’s the ultimate one? Billie-Louise goes through the whole process of StarHunt, week by week training, being tested, reckoning all the time she’s the best candidate to play Ophelia. She gets to the end of the process, and thanks to the audience vote, the part is given to Katrina Selsey. If that’s not a recipe for jealousy and resentment, I’d like to know what is.’
Interestingly, Ned English made no attempt to defend his girlfriend’s character from this attack. Instead he said, ‘If that were true, in which direction would backstage gossip then lead?’
‘Well, since you’ve been with Billie-Louise at least since the time StarHunt ended, people are wondering how long she’s been putting pressure on you about playing Ophelia.’
‘Meaning?’
‘Meaning that having Katrina out of the way would have been very convenient for her.’
This really hit the director hard. ‘Are you suggesting that Billie-Louise arranged Katrina’s little accident?’
‘I am not suggesting anything, Ned. I am merely reporting backstage gossip.’ Charles pressed home his advantage. ‘And backstage gossip is not suggesting that Billie-Louise arranged Katrina’s accident. It’s saying that Billie-Louise persuaded you to arrange it.’
Ned English shuddered from this new body blow. ‘Have you been talking to Billie-Louise?’ he asked.
Charles Paris had never met Billie-Louise, but he didn’t think it was the moment to admit that. Instead he replied, ‘Maybe.’
‘She didn’t ask you to do it for her, did she?’
‘Do what?’
‘Arrange something that would … make Katrina unable to continue with the show?’
Stepping further down the track to mendacity, Charles risked another: ‘Maybe.’
‘Oh God, she’s …’ Ned struggled to come up with the appropriate words. ‘Ambitious, I suppose. That’s at the bottom of it, but she’s so desperate to be part of celebrity culture that she … I don’t know. I sometimes wonder if there’s anything she wouldn’t do to get a foot on the next rung of the ladder of fame.’
‘But, apart from that, your
relationship works all right?’
‘It’s heaven, Charles.’ Through the round glasses the brown eyes looked straight at him, full of undeniable sincerity. Clearly not the moment to mention Ned having come on to Geraldine Romelle after their lunch. ‘I love her. I’ve never felt like this about a woman. I’d do anything for her.’
‘Anything?’
‘Anything short of doing what she asked me to do to Katrina.’
‘She didn’t ask you to kill her, did she?’
‘God, no. It was just to do something – something that’d stop her being in the show.’
‘Did Billie-Louise make any suggestions as to what that might be?’
‘No, she left it to me. I think she saw it as some kind of test.’
‘Of?’
‘Of how much I loved her.’
‘Ah.’
‘But I didn’t do it, Charles! I promise you I didn’t. I told her, I’d do anything for her, but not that.’
‘And did you respond like that because of your conscience, your high moral standards … or because you were worried what would happen if Tony Copeland found out what you’d done?’
Ned English’s uneasy shifting in his seat answered Charles’s question.
‘Do you actually know, Ned, how Katrina Selsey died?’
‘Banged her head on the floor.’
‘But what made her bang her head on the floor?’
He shrugged. ‘No idea, Charles.’
‘Well, I don’t know this for sure … maybe the police do, but they’re not about to share their findings … but I think someone had doctored Katrina’s mascara.’
‘Oh?’
‘Put bleach or something else corrosive into the tube. When she applied the brush to her eyes, the shock made her jerk backwards. She stumbled over the chair … with results that we know all too much about.’
